Karen Eisen saw the finish line up ahead, just a few yards away, and her legs churned faster and faster.
She broke the line in a full sprint, and as her tempo slowed back to normal, the look of determination on her face warmed into a broad smile.
In a mass of more than 65,000 people running, jogging and walking Sunday in the annual Komen Denver Race for the Cure, it was a small moment, one of many personal finish-line jubilations. But for Eisen, a breast-cancer survivor for eight years, it was her yearly reminder of victory.
“I can make it; I can do it,” she said. “Whatever it is, no matter how hard it is, I can do it.”
Sunday was Denver’s 14th annual Race for the Cure, put on by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. What started with just a few thousand people has grown to be the largest Race for the Cure event in the nation. Both the number of people participating in Sunday’s event and the amount of money raised – more than $1 million just in pledges to runners as of Sunday morning – are expected to set records for the event when tallied, said Dana Brandorff, a race spokeswoman.
Proceeds go to benefit breast-cancer education, screening and treatment programs in the metro area, and cancer research projects. Since its beginning, the Denver Race for the Cure has raised nearly $24 million.
In many ways, it was a race only in name. Runners who cared about their times on the 5-kilometer course around the Pepsi Center had to keep them for themselves. The winner of the women’s race didn’t even show up afterward to get her trophy. And Diane Groff, who was the fastest breast-cancer survivor on the day, didn’t say a word about running when picking up her trophy.
“We give each other courage and strength and inspiration,” she told the crowd assembled for the event’s closing ceremony. “And until there is a cure, we’re going to be racing for a cure.”
Instead, those who participated did so for the good of the cause. They wore pink hats and pink T-shirts, pink socks and pink feathered boas, pink capes and pink butterfly wings.
Some wore signs pinned to their backs beginning with the words, “I race in memory of …,” with the names of friends or relatives who battled the disease.
Casey Hartley wrote just two words: My Mom.
Hartley’s mom, Marilyn, died 12 years ago from breast cancer. So Sunday, Hartley gathered 18 friends, including her fiancé – who painted his face white and painted a pink ribbon around his head like a bandanna – to honor her mother and to raise money to end the disease.
“We’re doing this for her future and for her future,” Hartley said, touching her daughter and her niece on their shoulders. “For the past, the present and the future.”
Sunday was Eisen’s ninth Race for the Cure. She did her first while she was still in treatment for cancer, she said. That day, she was sick and she was tired, but she still finished.
The years since have brought continued inspiration, she said, and a chance for her to make a small statement in the face of a disease that will kill an estimated 40,000 women across the country this year.
“Here I am,” she said. “I’m still here. Every day is another victory.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
